writes:
[snip]

I am already reading up on chickens. I kept them a long time ago, when I
was a kid, but they seem to have become more complicated since then! g

Complicated? I chuckled when I read that. I became owner to ten chickens
last September, live in town on a 100x135-ft. lot and enjoy them
thoroughly as do the neighbor children (and likely the adults as well if
they'd admit itg). The complication was in feeling guilty about
confining them until the garden was finished for the season. The second
complication will be confining them again when the garden is soon planted.
The ladies have had full run of the back yard (except the pennyroyal
which I covered with hardware cloth). There shouldn't be a slug in sight
this spring and summer, an added advantage of those ladies (not to mention
how they can keep the weeks/grass down). And . . . they come running like
puppies when we go outside. We, like you, also had chickens when I was a
kid, and my grandparents had laying hens (for market), but I don't
remember them as being so social and even demanding of attention. Mine
are named and have distinct personalities and act much like puppies.

We live in the Portland, Oregon, area so don't use the yard much in the
winter months so watching where we step has been a minimal problem. The
March and April rains will eliminate any problem for later use, but there
will surely be more vigorous patches of grass throughout the yard.g

I found out today that I got my ten acre parcel!!!! One nice thing is
that
it comes complete with a barn and a big fenced chicken coop, as well as
those two pastures, so there won't be much I have to do there, other than
install fencing so my two big pooches don't stray too far.

Congratulations!!!

Glenna

"Glenna Rose" wrote in message
news:fc.003d0941018c74553b9aca00625512c7.18c78b7@p mug.org...

Complicated? I chuckled when I read that. I became owner to ten chickens
last September, live in town on a 100x135-ft. lot and enjoy them
thoroughly...

Yes, I remember raising the babies in my bedroom, in a big cardboard box.
When they got old enough to fly to the top of the box, I would wake up with
seven chickens roosting on the box edge, looking at me. :-) We moved them
to a coop, and they hung out all day long, back and forth between our house
and my aunt's stable, then come back to the coop and sleep. I had six white
leghorns and a bantee hen that somehow got mixed in with the leghorn chicks.
She was a little sweetie, and would literally crawl up into my lap and fall
asleep while I petted her.

I don't recall it being a big project to raise them, but now that I read up
on raising chickens again (about 25 years later), it seems like there are a
lot more rules! :-)